Diaspora (ancient Greek: dispersal of population through colonization), while it has taken on a negative connotation of trauma, exile, banishment; has also taken a positive connotation of a relation between migrants' homelands and their new places of settlement.
Yet people in camps are not people who are allowed to develop a relation with their new place of settlement. Urban slums are places where the pull factors outweigh the push factors. Urban slums have the potential to transform into empowered urban areas. "If the slum dwellers have admirable ingenuity in surviving under the most terrible of conditions, why should this same ingenuity not be the key to transforming slums and eventually eliminating them?" (Lebbeus Woods)
The terrible physical conditions of informal settlements can be changed from within if people are willing to engage in the improvement of their habitat. However, when inhabitants may not lay claims to an area as their habitat, how can they care about its physical condition?
"Migration is a fact, its autonomy could and still cannot be regulated as states and transnational organisations would wish for. Migration is a consequence of economic exploitation, political repression and war, but also of the legitimate interest of people to find better or different living conditions." (noborder.org)
"Migration is a fact, its autonomy could and still cannot be regulated as states and transnational organisations would wish for. Migration is a consequence of economic exploitation, political repression and war, but also of the legitimate interest of people to find better or different living conditions." (noborder.org)
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